HomePod Bricked HomePod Apple Support Experience

[minik]

You’ll have a total of 2 years coverage. AppleCare+ covers 2 years from the date or purchasing AppleCare+

I’d have waited until I was close to nearing the end of the 1 year warranty period before buying AC.

Hopefully you don’t ever need to use it and I hope it lasts for years.

Yea, it’s basically one more year of coverage and that’s it. I know software plays a big part of the Home Pod and hard to say about support lifecycle and software development, especially 1GB of memory and Apple A8 chip.

I know it’s a complete different category, my 27-inch LED Cinema Display (Apple discontinued it on Oct 2013) is still not on the official vintage/obsolete list. I brought it in for a repair few years ago (bad power supply/logic board) and the Genius didn’t really want to fix it.

 

[Adam Free]

Anyone else in Sydney with a dead HomePod ? I'd like to hear from anyone with one who thinks something at that price should last more than 2-3 years before becoming e-waste. Apparently there are quite a few so it would be good to have a few cases to bring to fairtrading NSW to argue for replacements. Email homepod@streak.net.au

 

[hippyeverafter]

Looking at the comments above is the reason why I buy apple products from John Lewis as they come with a two year warranty as standard. Obviously if it is a computer ,laptop or iPhone and you want to upgraded it ie, storage or memory you would need to buy directly from apple. That being said I never pay extra for Apple care but at the end of the day that's the gamble I take and accept.

 

[jimkingwood]

Hi All,

Thought I'd share this experience. Partly because I'd like to take my own temperature and secondly because I wonder if it might be useful for other owners.

I purchased a HomePod in January 2019. It has sat, essentially unmoved on my sideboard for the past couple of years. It's worked well. The other day I noticed it had stopped responding to Siri voice commands. I went over and tapped it and got no response via touch either. I turned it off at the wall and turned it back on again. No joy. I unplugged it and plugged it into a different socket. No joy. Next thing I tried was changing the fuse. Again, no joy. At this point I figured it was essentially bricked so I setup a Genius Bar appointment.

I visited the Basingstoke store today to have it looked at. I was relatively unsurprised, though disappointed to learn that the only thing they could offer me was a £212 'repair' fee for what would essentially be a straight swap of my non-functional old HomePod with a functional new model.

While I understand that technically the HomePod is out of warranty, I feel pretty short changed here. The HomePod has seen zero abuse and frankly should function for more than 2yrs 2 months before giving up the ghost. The tech recommended that if I wanted to escalate it, I could call AppleCare via the Apple Support app. On getting home I did this. No dice. Was told the exact same thing.

As someone who has spent a lot of money over the years with Apple, including on a custom iMac Pro I found the absence of discretion in this situation pretty disappointing. I accept that sometimes things go wrong outside of warranty - I've had iMac's in the past that needed GPU daughterboard replacements and so forth, but I've never had a device go so dead, so completely in such a short timescale and then been asked to fess up 76% of the original purchase price to have a 'repair'.

I appreciate that I am just little me, and Apple is monolithic Apple, but I after 30 years of being a Mac user, I found this treatment pretty ******. But hey, perhaps I am being unreasonable. I think not though.

So, anyone who has a similar experience, prepare yourself. It's fairly unforgiving.

Dang. I can tell you are sad and disappointed about this. Apple has always had these hard-hearted spots throughout its existence, haven't they? And you are right, speakers are meant to last more than two years.

 

[deaglecat]

OP: if in the UK and you bought from Apple directly (i.e. they are the retailer), then they have obligations and you may have recourse under UK Consumer Rights Act.

Legal - Apple Products and Consumer Laws in the United Kingdom - Apple

www.apple.com

That is why I buy direct from Apple. So that they are the "retailer".

I have had some success in arguing my point with Apple. Just keep asking to escalate..

 

[jrodmonaco]

Came across this post, and wanted to leave my feedback from today. After coming back from a 2 week vacation, I found my homepod with the volumes blinking. This unit is from a stereo pair I have in my home office. I contacted Apple, tried all the possible resets with an agent which I shared my phone screen with. They could see I have 7 homepods in total, between OG and minis.

After she was done, a senior tech came into the conversation and they offered to send me a replacement for free in exchange for this one. The homepod is out of warranty and without Apple Care+.

Kudos to Apple.

 

[Alchemist]

Came across this post, and wanted to leave my feedback from today. After coming back from a 2 week vacation, I found my homepod with the volumes blinking. This unit is from a stereo pair I have in my home office. I contacted Apple, tried all the possible resets with an agent which I shared my phone screen with. They could see I have 7 homepods in total, between OG and minis.

After she was done, a senior tech came into the conversation and they offered to send me a replacement for free in exchange for this one. The homepod is out of warranty and without Apple Care+.

Kudos to Apple.

I'm delighted to hear that they sorted this issue for you. This is how it should go in this sort of scenario IMHO. I was sadly not as lucky, but I'm glad that they are willing to help some people out.

 

[ouimetnick]

Came across this post, and wanted to leave my feedback from today. After coming back from a 2 week vacation, I found my homepod with the volumes blinking. This unit is from a stereo pair I have in my home office. I contacted Apple, tried all the possible resets with an agent which I shared my phone screen with. They could see I have 7 homepods in total, between OG and minis.

After she was done, a senior tech came into the conversation and they offered to send me a replacement for free in exchange for this one. The homepod is out of warranty and without Apple Care+.

Kudos to Apple.

How far out of warranty is this unit? In my opinion, there’s clearly a defect or design flaw for the original HomePod. It seems that it’s not an “if” but “when” these units fail.

Kudos to Apple, but they shouldn’t have release such a expensive piece of unreliable tech to begin with.. cough butterfly keyboard, display ribbon cable issues with MBP, etc.

 

[jrodmonaco]

How far out of warranty is this unit? In my opinion, there’s clearly a defect or design flaw for the original HomePod. It seems that it’s not an “if” but “when” these units fail.

Kudos to Apple, but they shouldn’t have release such a expensive piece of unreliable tech to begin with.. cough butterfly keyboard, display ribbon cable issues with MBP, etc.

I bought the homepod on 04/20... I agree with you. This is not the first time I had issues with Apple devices and especially first generations, but in my experience they always tend to help out more than anything.

A month ago, another device had a failure (iPad Pro) also out of warranty. Went to a Genius Bar appointment and after realizing there was nothing to be done, the Store Manager allowed me to trade it in at its "Apple price" (around $400) instead of $0.

 

[Htsi]

I agree with the statement that failures are a when and not an IF with the HomePod’s. Till they work they are fab, but I am certain they won’t last more than a couple of years post AC+ expires

 

[Itinj24]

I agree with the statement that failures are a when and not an IF with the HomePod’s. Till they work they are fab, but I am certain they won’t last more than a couple of years post AC+ expires

Apple is taking these out one by one via software lol. I don’t think they want anything to do with them anymore and want to rid them all. Can’t make it too obvious so they’re doing it in segments. Hope my serial numbers aren’t next on the list. Lol.